Happy New Year

or Sawadee Pee Mai as we say here. Yes, it really is new year or Songkran  as we call it here. It is several days (depending on your stamina) of mayhem, madness and fun. It involves lots of water, and food and drink.

Besides the traditional water throwing there are usually lots of other social gatherings as many Thais who live in other places come home to celebrate. So I decided I wanted something a-little-bit-but-not-too-much Thai to wear.

V8805

I used V8805 (again) but with only one lower bodice piece. I also used some of my gorgeous mudmee (ikat) fabric, which is handwoven here in Lampang. You can buy some here.

French seams

Since I had made this pattern before, it came together really quickly and easily. Unfortunately this fabric frays when you look at it so I tried to be really careful and staystitched everything immediately. I also used french seams throughout.

me made bias binding

And made my own bias binding. Not an easy task in this fabric but well worth the effort, I think.

Not much more to say really. I wore it out on Friday night and it was everything I hoped it would be: cool and comfortable.

Mudmee V8805

This shows the colours most accurately.

So that was a relatively quick and very satisfying make, which I'm sure will get lots of wear. I also just realised that it also fits the Monthly Stitch Sewing Double challenge and the Sewcialists  #pinkapril too. Now that's a winning combination.

Are you doing any double sewing? or pink sewing? or both?

very late #sewgreendecember

This is just a catch up on a couple of quick, easy makes that I did finish in December but just didn't get around to blogging.

First up is a #sewgreendecember top. Sew Green December was a sewcialists theme. For more on this and their upcoming themes have a look at their blog.

It is a constantly-work-in-progress self drafted top that started life as a copy of a RTW.

I presume the tripod was less than straight - I'm fairly sure that I hadn't been drinking:)

I used this lovely green eyelet fabric that I bought as a remnant for about $6 for 2 meters.

Not the best pic since it is just an enlarged crop. But you can kind of see the scollaped hem. This made it a very quick make since it didn't even need hemming and only has two seams.

The next make was another tunic length version of V8805. I had previously made this dress  but had made a mistake in my forward shoulder adjustment. Since I plan to make at least one more of these when the weather heats up, I wanted to make sure I had it right (it is now spot on). So I whipped up this

The fabric is a Thai Cotton, available in my etsy shop. I bought this for a dress for my sister and had enough left over for this top. My sister's dress is also a V8805 so the top is like this one with the bottom band also with horizontal stripes. Sorry no pics of it.

Both of these are going to be great once the mercury starts rising.

If you are in Australia then I hope the mercury drops soon but in the meantime remember that it is important to keep your fluids up in the heat (and that G & T and beer are fluids).

Stay cool!

Make a Garment a Month January

I seem to have an awful lot of catching up to do. With everything, sewing, blogging, the etsy shop, really everything. So something simple for January....

I am going to make view C (the floral image) in this lovely Thai cotton with a textured self stripe which I bought at the fabulous Narin Fabric Supermarket in Chiang Mai for about $1.50/metre. This will be a test run of sizing etc on the simpler version before I eventually make the blue one (view B) in some lovely blue linen. But that will probably be for the sewcialists blue february.

And just for the record, I did finish my green pants for December. See, here they are

Not much of a picture I know. They do fit ok, they have been worn but no pics were taken. And since I need to iron them before this can happen, it may be a while....

Happy sewing

Green Pants Plan B

Well as you may know I was planning on using M6361 and this green cotton spandex to make  view A.

This pattern calls itself  " the 2 hour pants". Well after 2 hours of grappling with my traced pattern pieces, I still hadn't managed to make much headway. Maybe I'm awkward, maybe fitting pants pieces on yourself is an awkward thing to do. Who knows. All I know is that 2 hours later I still had no idea what adjustments I needed to make nor how to make them or frankly, even where to begin really.

The green pants were looking unlikely to happen.

And then this arrived

It is the Plus Size Pattern Pyramid which I was very fortunate to win from the lovely Chris Lucas.

And this was inside

So the green pants (Plan B) are a go.

Wish me luck!

Has anyone else tried M6361? Was it just me? Should I give it another go?

Sew Green December

As you no doubt already know the sewcialists host themed monthly challenges. They did Sew Red October and then Grunge November and now.....

So I am planning to make something with these green lovelies

The dark green cotton/spandex on the left will become close fitting pants. (yeah first pants I've sewn in 30 years). The middle fabric is gorgeous border print linen and will become a Christmas Day dress (not sure which pattern yet) while the eyelet fabric is destined to become a cool comfy top for our annual end of year raft trip on Kiew Lom dam.

Gee, raft trip sounds so outdoorsy and active. In reality it is a very large raft with 30-40 people, lots of good food, beer and wine. Don't worry I'll post pictures and all will be clear (after Dec 28 which is day of raft trip).

So are you a sewcialist? Any plans for Sew Green December?